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Hack Tuke, Daniel – Sickness - Bladder disease and urination induced by powerful emotions – Fear and Anxiety
Identifier
026140
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Urination is the release of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. It is the urinary system's form of excretion. It is also known medically as micturition, voiding, uresis, or, rarely, emiction
A description of the experience
As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,
PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER IX. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE INVOLUNTARY MUSCLES.
Ureters, Bladder, and Urethra.
We shall only notice here the familiar effects of Fear, &c, in causing spasm of the expulsor muscle of the bladder and inducing urgent micturition. The following is given by Romberg as an example of spasm of the bladder from the fear of approaching death :
" A Judge of the Criminal Courts related to me that a man, convicted of highway robbery and murder, who was executed some years ago in the town, before mounting the scaffold, prayed to be allowed to gratify the urgent desire to micturate."
He adds,
"Even certain mental impressions are capable of inducing a greater inclination to frequent contractions of the vesical muscles, as in other instances they affect the muscular fibres of the rectum. We occasionally meet with hypochondriacal patients who think of nothing else but the state of their evacuations. I have had a gentleman of this description under my care, who always remained in the vicinity of his house when he took a walk, in order to be able at once to follow the call of nature. There was another who had heard that the formation of calculus could be prevented by frequent micturition ; after the impression had ceased to harass him, he was still often reminded of it by an annoying sense of strangury"
(A Manual of the Nervous Diseases of Man. By M. H. Romberg, M.D. Translated for the Sydendam Society by Dr. Sieveking. 2 vols. 1853., II, p. 31).